Tanaka

Tanaka is 18 years old, single and lives in the Mudzi district of Zimbabwe. She is a Camfed Learner Guide, and teaches life-skills education in local schools. She also counsels students and helps clean the local clinic. Tanaka rents a shop where she sells products such as bags, shoes, jeans, shirts, skirts, track suits, and T-shirts. She has been running this business for five months now and it has allowed her to support her family. She is requesting a Kiva loan to buy more clothes, shoes and blankets to sell. This will reduce her costs and boost her sales volumes and profits. In the future, she hopes to expand into a large retail business and create even more employment in her community and provide for the family.

Additional Information

More information about this loan

Young women who live and work in the most impoverished, rural districts of Zimbabwe have very limited income, lack collateral and cannot access loans at affordable rates

Camfed's borrowers are young women who live and work in these remote rural areas and belong to the Cama network (the association of Camfed alumni). Most Cama borrowers will have received money management and business training through Camfed’s programs for young women who have completed high school. Borrowers will repay interest upon their loans as a "social interest" - through their volunteer efforts to enhance the quality of the education provided by their local schools.

Borrowers commit to contribute a minimum of 2.5 hours per week as volunteers. As Learner Guides, they will lead students through a new wellbeing curriculum that helps develop students’ skills and capacities for decision-making, problem solving, leadership, entrepreneurship, resilience, communication, and empathy.

About Camfed

The Campaign for Female Education (Camfed) is an international nonprofit organization operating in five countries in Africa that focuses on eradicating poverty in rural Africa by investing in education for girls and supporting the economic self-reliance and leadership of young women. Camfed provides support for the long-term, working with individuals from primary to high school, and through the Cama empowerment and community outreach group.

Kiva lenders’ funds are used to link women living in rural Zimbabwe to the capital they need to expand their businesses, support their families and contribute to their communities.